The U.S.-China relationship and the economic and security dynamics of the Indo-Pacific are riddled with contradictions that raise questions about both the Chinese and American policies. How this drama plays out will have no small impact on a global and regional system in transition looking out to 2025.

The implementation of the “Belt and Road” initiative became dependent on the pro et contra balance that is not conducive to cooperation for the time being. “Gains and prospects” are abstract, while “risks and threats,” on the contrary, are quite concrete and cannot be ignored.

Chinese geoeconomics is making a great leap forward to adjust to rapid technological developments and a changing international distribution of power. The world is entering a new industrial revolution that further decouples the relationship between capital and labour, which incentivises Beijing to abandon its reliance on low-wage competitiveness and instead take the lead in developing high-tech strategic industries with its digital Silk Road.

Since August 2017, legislation allowing the imposition of a range of new sanctions against Russia has been passed by US lawmakers. Although not all this legislation has thus far been implemented by the president, Donald Trump, the mere threat of more draconian economic sanctions from the US created considerable uncertainty in Russia.

The reasons for Russia’s turn to the East obviously lie in geopolitics?it was unable to establish a fruitful interaction with the West. China also failed to develop equal relations with Western countries. That is why many Russia’s decisions about the Far East were taken without proper calculations regarding the chances for economic development and investment attractiveness.

The Far East development strategy should focus on building an area of innovative resource-based economy. The production of innovative resource-intensive goods and services with a focus on the growing Asian markets running low on natural resources could be an attractive niche for the Russian Far East to take and succeed in.

Globalization American-style has reached its natural limits, and now China and Asia as a whole are becoming the main beneficiaries of world development. The current growth of neomercantilism, protectionism and regionalization in the world resembles the situation of the decade before World War I.

World politics resembles a never-before-seen funfair. A room of distorting mirrors, roller coasters, a fast and breathtaking merry-go-round, and swings flinging from one extreme point to the other… All of this is happening simultaneously, and we seem to be trapped inside this bizarre contraption that can pull all kinds of weird tricks. There is a feeling that a whole era is coming to an end.

Russia is genetically an authoritative country. This must be calmly accepted and used as a competitive advantage. Another factor that pushes us towards the pivot is that Europe is stagnating, locked in a complex crisis, and not really capable of much, while Asia is growing rapidly, due in no small part to military “cover” from Russia.

Facing its ‘most dynamic and formidable competitor in modern history’, Washington increasingly does away with hopeful thinking and seeks new approaches towards Asia. It raised the concept of the Indo-Pacific region. But what strategy is behind this buzzword? And what does it mean for Asia?

It is about time to draft a truly new foreign policy concept as the previous narrative has exhausted itself, being more of a ritual than a guide to action. Russia needs “strategic patience” as never before.

The Belt and Road Initiative, originally aimed at domestic economic development, has turned into an umbrella bringing together China’s ambitious projects to shape a new order in Eurasia, which directly influences Europe.

Tendencies will continue—a geopolitical shift towards Eurasia and the Asia Pacific Region; symbolic ‘sovereignization’ of Russia and its further distancing from the U.S. and Europe; and the erosion of a foreign policy consensus. The fourth edition of Putin’s foreign policy will most likely differ significantly from the previous three.

There is no greater joy for a Russian intellectual than to speculate about a decline of America. The problem is that the Russians still do not see any other worthy role for their country in the 21st century than the role of a superpower, as a state that realizes itself primarily through influence on global processes.

Many analysts in Moscow argue that the political and propaganda pressure being exerted by the West on Russia is the result of Russia’s growth. But this Western pressure is more of a counterattack against Russia than a direct attack intended to prevent a further weakening of the West’s positions and possibly win them back. This counterattack is an important constituent feature of a “New Epoch of Confrontation.”

A concert of powers in which European nations performed throughout the 19th century provided for peace and tranquility on the continent for almost a hundred years. Today, in an era of overall domination by one country and collapse of the former international architecture, it is time to recall the principles of that Concert. But now the Concert will have to be played according to global scores of the new millennium.

In 100 years since the Revolution of 1917, it continues to have impact on the Russian society. Divergent assessments of the Revolution and different approaches to its commemoration have been sparking off heated debates on Russia’s past and future that emphasize the need to reconcile different narratives.

Within a few decades, the Internet has transformed the global economy and rendered the old Westphalian order increasingly obsolete. But without a new governance framework to manage cyber threats and abuses, what has been a boon to globalization could become its undoing.

Donald Trump enters the second year of his presidency as one of the most controversial politicians in the US history. Opinions vary greatly, but one thing is clear: the past year has been marked by fundamental changes in the United States’ domestic and foreign policy, with many results of the previous administration virtually wiped out.

At the end of 2016, both the political and expert communities in Russia appeared to be very pessimistic about the future of the world order in general, and the about the future of the West in particular.

Russia is neither doomed to have adversarial relations with the West nor destined to have friendly ones with it: it is all in the hands of policymakers who need to learn, also from their own mistakes. Anatoly Adamishin’s book provides them with a rich body of experience to work from.

Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.

The announcement of the US pullout from Syria was received with caution in Moscow. Besides the security and political challenges it may bring about, the Trump decision could mean the end of a practical, relatively constructive US-Russian approach to conflict at flashpoints.

Having emerged from centuries of bloodshed to become the poster child for integration and collaboration, Europe has a distinct service to offer the rest of the world. With the international order coming apart and populist nationalism on the rise, now is the time for the European Union to show leadership, both at home and abroad.

Summing up the results of 2018, one is tempted to lay emphasis on a number of major events and trends. However, that carries the risk of neglecting systemic issues that generate the diversity of individual phenomena. The understanding of these issues provides us with an analytical ability that helps us attribute numerous events to a more or less understandable model.

Chinese geoeconomics is making a great leap forward to adjust to rapid technological developments and a changing international distribution of power. The world is entering a new industrial revolution that further decouples the relationship between capital and labour, which incentivises Beijing to abandon its reliance on low-wage competitiveness and instead take the lead in developing high-tech strategic industries with its digital Silk Road.

Almost 35 years ago, US President Ronald Reagan settled down in the White House to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster WarGames as part of his regular Sunday film night. The film, starring a young Matthew Broderick, depicted a teenage computer hacker accidentally breaking into top-secret Pentagon supercomputers that controlled US nuclear weapons.